The way everyone seems to have agreed to proceed with conference realignment is to give Stanford as much time as they need and then figure it all out from there. It makes a lot of sense—Stanford is somewhere in the ballpark of five to ten times as valuable a media property as the average Mountain West school, and they’re definitely more valuable than Washington State, Oregon State, and Cal—but it reads as though the other parties are all giving Stanford space to grieve. Hey guys, give Stanford a little space. They’re going through it right now.
If anyone else is to make the first move instead, one would think it would be the Mountain West. Mountain West schools, as we know well from the San Diego State fiasco, would owe the league $34M apiece were they to try to exit the league in time for next year’s athletic season, making them unlikely targets for last-ditch Pac-4 expansion. With the advantage of making a whole lot of damn sense as a home for *at least* Washington State and Oregon State, and with the following advantage of getting to renew its own TV contracts in three years, the Mountain West would be wise to put as much pressure as it can on every one of its four targets without provoking resistance.
It’s possible this is happening, or that it will happen soon. It seems likely that this is the way this is all going—the ACC possibility still appears dead, and the American might dole out more money to schools right now than the MWC does, possibly even 75% more, but 75% in this case is only three million dollars, and while that’s a ton of money to an athletic budget, it isn’t going to make the difference for anyone in the Pac-4, especially once travel costs are included. Additionally, what each of these conferences pay their schools right now is not necessarily what they’d pay the Pac-4 schools. Contracts will need to be renegotiated. The winning conference’s revenue may rise. Overall, it’s hard to believe the AAC could be a better fit than the Mountain West for this Pac-4, and it’s hard to believe the ACC will reverse course (and there’s been no legitimate talk of it adding Washington State and Oregon State anymore), and if the Pac-4 were to start to rebuild, it’d have a tall task ahead of it, probably recruiting some pair like SMU and Rice with the promise of getting Boise State and San Diego State in 2026–27, or something of that nature.
So, when I guess these days, my guess is we see at least Washington State and Oregon State join the Mountain West. This then makes me wonder whether the Mountain West could make another move.
By adding some combination of the Pac-4 schools, the Mountain West would rise to 13, 14, or 15 schools in its full membership (Hawaii is a football-only member). None of those presently represents a “full deck,” with the SEC and Big 12 each set to sit at 16 and the Big Ten growing to 18. It’s debatable how bad it is to have an odd number of teams, or one not divisible by four. Plenty of conferences throughout history have scheduled just fine with even a prime number of team’s, like the Big Ten’s eleven during those two decades after Penn State joined. But, in the present day of conference realignment, there’s something of a manifest destiny mindset. The Mountain West might not want to stop at Washington State and Oregon State, or even at those two, Cal, and Stanford.
One phenomenon happening below the Group of Five on the college football ladder is that teams continue to step up from the FCS to the FBS, but that’s mostly happening in the southern and eastern halves of the country. Appalachian State, James Madison, Liberty, Coastal Carolina, Jacksonville State, Sam Houston State, Texas State, and others have made the transition to FBS football in much the same manner as how Division II schools continue to climb into Division I overall. There is a lot of upward movement in college sports right now. There is not a lot of downward movement. Another phenomenon? This likely ties in part back to the upward mobility of those non-Western programs, but the FCS’s balance of power right now lies in the North and the West. South Dakota State and North Dakota State rule the division, and below them, there’s strength in Montana, Utah, California, Texas, Iowa, and Missouri. This isn’t exclusive—Holy Cross just had a great season, the SoCon and the CAA are plenty competitive—but nine of the top 17 teams in the preseason STATS poll hail from the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho, California, and Utah, and there are others among those 17 from the states we listed that are not so MWC-centric.
Conference alignment isn’t as simple as promotion and relegation are abroad. There are media markets to consider, there’s academics, and most of the ultimate value in each brand comes back to the size of that brand’s following. But there is a strong correlation between how good a school is at football and how valuable that school is to a media contract. Out of college football’s five most notable mid-major darlings from the last 25 years (Utah, TCU, Boise State, UCF, Cincinnati), only Boise State hasn’t risen leagues, and the Broncos almost pulled it off before the Big East sunk and turned into the AAC. It would take a lot of money for these schools for scholarships, and stadium renovations might be necessary for some if not all of them (not Idaho, notably, who like Montana was part of the Pacific Coast Conference, the league that blew up in the 50s and gave birth in the 60s to what would become the Pac-12), but at the end of last year, South Dakota State was ranked 26th in all of Division I by Movelor. They would have been, at most, a one-touchdown underdog in betting markets against USC (and we would have taken South Dakota State). These schools can compete, and if the Mountain West can get the best of them—NDSU and SDSU—the Mountain West could conceivably do something to establish itself as the West’s football league.
If we were to take the Mountain West’s current twelve teams and add Washington State, Oregon State, North Dakota State, and South Dakota State, and we were to then go back to those end-of-season Movelor rankings, the Mountain West would still lag far behind the Power Four. It’s not going to magically become a high-major league. But it would have had only one fewer top-50 team than the ACC. It would have had four teams in the top 25 or receiving votes. It would have had only one team worse than Colorado. It would also have a median and mean ranking right alongside those of the current AAC, something that could be key should the College Football Playoff switch its upcoming format such that it only admits five conference champions as automatic bids, rather than six.
What am I saying? The Mountain West should get aggressive regardless of what happens with Stanford and Cal, but specifically, if it can’t get Stanford, it should call the guys in Brookings and Fargo. It should try to make that happen. Those are good football teams, and good football is what legitimizes a league.
Also?
We should talk about Gonzaga.
Gonzaga’s flirtation with the Big 12 means it might soon be off the table. Presumably, the Big 12 would like to find another non-football member. In the meantime, though, or in case things go awry like they once did for Boise State and the Big East, the Zags could still help elevate the Mountain West if the Mountain West can manage to land them. While basketball is their calling card, they’re a competent athletic department top to bottom, finishing between UConn and UCF in the Director’s Cup this year. They also have enough booster support that if they were to attempt to stand up a football program right now, it’s possible they could pull it off. I don’t know that with any certainty—“possible” is a convenient word here—but if I were Gonzaga at this moment, I’d be running football feasibility studies every chance I got, and if I were the Mountain West, I’d be checking in on these guys weekly.
Iowa State Keeps Selling Tickets
You know who isn’t put off by conference realignment? Big 12 fans. Dragged through the trenches, the Big 12 survived, and there’s excitement on the Great Plains.
At present, Arizona, Arizona State, and Colorado don’t offer a whole lot to the league on the football field. All three finished worse, by Movelor, than the rest of the New Big 12 did last year. But Colorado has the Deion Sanders hype, and Arizona and Arizona State have plenty of potential, and in the meantime, there’s a 14-team Big 12 season coming up without them that’s forecasted to rock. At least in Ames, ticket sales are through the roof, with Athletic Director Jamie Pollard sharing this week that they’re on track to set an Iowa State record. What a development for a program that was staring down mid-majordom for many of the last fifteen years.
The Cubs Need Tonight
There are no must-wins, but…it really hurts to lose a two-game set to a rival, especially when that rival is playing out the string and you are chasing the playoffs. So, tonight’s a big one for the Cubbies.
I don’t often think about baseball rivalries. They’re often so personal, rather than traditional, ebbing and flowing as rosters build and rosters turn over and different teams play meaningful baseball against one another. There are some constants, the ones driven largely by fans, but a lot of baseball rivalries cycle around specific incidents between specific players. Still, there’s something special about seeing the Cubs play the Sox, no matter how relatively good the terms are between the players on the field and the staffs in each front office. It’s strange to say, but I don’t know that we appreciate rivalries enough, in sports in general but especially in baseball. There’s an electricity there.
